things can always get worse, and do.
passed up the infomercial last night in favor of a western about amputations and cannibalism, which rather produced the same themes with more entertainment.
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 18:28 (eight years ago) link
I assume you mean Bone Tomahawk?
― Very selfish, and very ironic (DJP), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 18:33 (eight years ago) link
They are both showing the propaganda version - it's the SOTU speech!
― Andrew Farrell, Wednesday, 13 January 2016 18:35 (eight years ago) link
xp yes, just a few walkouts at MoMA when the cannibals, well...
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 18:40 (eight years ago) link
I got enough of a rundown from jjj to realize that this movie isn't one I should seek out but it sounds great in the abstract
― Very selfish, and very ironic (DJP), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 18:41 (eight years ago) link
it's fine if you hide your eyes for 20 seconds, just like with reaction shots of Mitch McConeell.
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 18:43 (eight years ago) link
that movie was directed by a guy who used to write for Metal Maniacs
― tremendous crime wave and killing wave (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 18:44 (eight years ago) link
yes, he went into his metal history in Q&A and seems to be a John Ford hater, but i liked the film nonetheless
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 18:45 (eight years ago) link
also from a political angle, given that the antagonists are a Native "lost race" that might be politically queasy, he had two of the white principals condemn "manifest destiny" and "bigotry," which seems like a high proportion in a white-guy search party of four in the 1890s, but i understand it.
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 18:48 (eight years ago) link
anyway back to propaganda:
What made Obama’s soliloquy especially maddening was his suggestion that big money has overwhelmed politics because because Americans just aren’t trying hard enough:
"Changes in our political process — in not just who gets elected, but how they get elected — that will only happen when the American people demand it. It depends on you. That’s what’s meant by a government of, by, and for the people."
In fact, U.S. citizens have demanded “changes in our political process.” Activists delivered over one million signatures to the White House telling Obama to sign an executive order on dark money. A similar petition set up via the White House website’s system has passed the 100,000 signatory threshold requiring a response (which the Obama administration has yet to produce). Twenty-seven senators, including Minority Leader Harry Reid, and over 100 members of the House of Representatives have asked Obama for such an executive order. Even Gene Sperling, former director of Obama’s National Economic Council, has said it’s “important and needed.”
But Obama has steadfastly refused to act.
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/13/obama-delivers-more-pretty-words-ugly-inaction-on-money-in-politics/
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 19:51 (eight years ago) link
yeah i hear you Karl Malone. i didn't watch it in any version but i get what you're saying. there is something about the deadpan blahness of C-SPAN aesthetics that has always given me hope that we could someday become a country that approaches politics and policy more or less like that all the time. like my fantasy of publicly-funded elections looking kinda like that: flat, shot-on-video footage of people talking in rooms with ugly lighting and no makeup, with audible coughs and sips of water. not saying that would miraculously make us a real democracy or w/e but it would definitely be a positive change.
shifting over into really slick aesthetics is jarring, yeah, although i guess you could imagine that (if the audience were more media-literate or critical) it would make visible the pageantry that's always been there with these things. not as much pageantry as say, the nominating conventions - but still. the meme-ready graphics and charts and shit, especially in a "they fly at u face" sort of way where it's not like you can sit and read the scale of the chart or the explanation of what it's measuring, just CHART HERE IS CHART, BELIEVE!!!... yeah, that does feel more propagandistic. blah.
― Doctor Casino, important war pigeon (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 20:34 (eight years ago) link
a transmission from 2018 just appeared in my inbox
http://i.imgur.com/q1G06IM.jpg
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 13 January 2016 20:51 (eight years ago) link
(there really was a splitscreen last night of obama with the statue of liberty)
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 13 January 2016 20:52 (eight years ago) link
but in my paranoid future, NBC is now some sort of subsidiary of NetflixVerizon, who made a deal with the Cruz administration to stream national addresses
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 13 January 2016 20:53 (eight years ago) link
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kim-davis-sotu-jim-jordan_56957017e4b05b3245dadc0d?ref=yfp
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 13 January 2016 21:57 (eight years ago) link
kinda funny - gives every impression that she's interested in milking her "celebrity"
@tinyrevolution This guy Obama feels so strongly about money in politics, he should really run for president
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 22:00 (eight years ago) link
also, Tony Kushner's husband (good film writer) is kind of a lib idiot
@MarkHarrisNYCAdd up Obama's progressive accomplishments 2008-16 versus the accomplishments of everyone for whom he isn't progressive enough. He wins.
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 22:19 (eight years ago) link
or you could go to someone whom you cite often who's not a lib idiot and whose conclusions line up with mine almost as well as drone rockets did on al-Awlaki:
Despite all of that, here in 2016, the Affordable Care Act is still law, as is marriage equality, and so is the right to be gay and a soldier. Wall Street is still regulated better than it was in 2008. The president has moved the country further toward a policy to combat the climate crisis than anyone thought he could. He has moved boldly—and alone—on the issue of this country's insane attachment to its firearms. And he has redefined for all time the concept of a lame-duck president as a president with no more fcks to give. As Michael Grunwald shrewdly points out, if you listen to the Republicans on the campaign trail, they mostly complain about all the stuff that the president has managed to accomplish.
He has had to be more of a wartime president than he wanted to be. The drone war—and its consequences in both the short and the long term—are his alone. Sooner or later, some of the kids he's sending back to Central America are going to end up dead, and that will be on him, too. The surveillance state is still alive and well in the United States and Edward Snowden is still alive and well in Moscow. He can't close the prison at Guantanamo because Congress won't give him the money to do it.
He has been as progressive a president as our stunted, money-drunk politics allows, and that's been enough. Has he disappointed me? Yes, which gives him something in common with every president of my lifetime.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 22:23 (eight years ago) link
yeah i don't like him in that mode. expect more.
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 22:28 (eight years ago) link
DEMAND more.
except, as you know, it's all fucking over.
He has been as progressive a president as our stunted, money-drunk politics allows
self-fulfilling horseshit
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 22:29 (eight years ago) link
we're kind of perpetually fucked until we somehow manage to reconcile mid-term elections with the presidential elections in order to get movement on the actual process of legislation
it's kind of bullshit we even refer to them as "mid-term" when the makeup of the legislative body is more important than the president, who has executive power but functionally can't introduce policy beyond handing it to the party representatives in congress and making bold speeches
― μpright mammal (mh), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 22:33 (eight years ago) link
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius),
It's not a binary. It's being an adult. It's possible like many friends who finally have access to health care to campaign for Sanders because HRC is a horror.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 22:38 (eight years ago) link
Screw that "adult" shit in particular, it's the mantra of the O-bots on JoeMyGod and the like.
any "progressives" who are disappointed in Obama after his 2008 spring/summer antics had their heads in the sand.
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 22:55 (eight years ago) link
I voted for O in the NY '08 primary, and it's the last shameful time i'm going to be pressured into shoveling 'adult' shit.
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 22:56 (eight years ago) link
Man, Karl, going back through some of these old SOTUs really bring back the memories.
http://i.imgur.com/vh9OnZf.jpg
― pplains, Wednesday, 13 January 2016 22:57 (eight years ago) link
loool
maybe this is the start of a grand new tradition
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 13 January 2016 23:02 (eight years ago) link
I didn't vote for him at all in '08: his FISA vote, so soon after the decade's horrors, was too puerile for me to accept. He had done nothing for me to feel disappointed about; he's governed exactly as he says he's going to govern. I voted for him in 2012 because he'd done enough for me to recoil at the idea of Romney taking Miami-Dade.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 23:04 (eight years ago) link
he's governed exactly as he says he's going to govern
something to be admired about this, imo. his lack of duplicity is pretty unusual for a prez.
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 13 January 2016 23:07 (eight years ago) link
Sorry you can't imagine nuances to the word, like David Brooks attaching "reform" to "conservatism."
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 23:07 (eight years ago) link
His foreign policy's been more confused than expected: super exec powers bequeathed by Bush + "smart" "tactical" Clinton-era recoiling from ground combat + chickens coming home to roost in the Middle East = shit's fucked up. But I can't imagine any president of either party creating coherence out of Middle East policy, in part because the idea that we can impose coherence on independent actors is fucking mindless. I do admire the Iran deal -- in broad strokes.
In contrast to 2008 (most of it anyway), I'm thinking about domestic matters only.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 23:11 (eight years ago) link
I mean: Saudi Arabia's our most trusted ally.
also crap, let's start w/ promise to walk a picket line with a union, close Guantanamo, warrantless surveillance is "not who we are"...
even Cheney strongly hinted he'd come around to inheriting a good chunk of the required worldview.
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 23:14 (eight years ago) link
I....don't think he inherited it? After the FISA vote I knew he believed it.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 23:15 (eight years ago) link
also he "hates stupid wars," several of which he's prosecuted
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 23:15 (eight years ago) link
as usual you are fudging a lot of facts
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 13 January 2016 23:16 (eight years ago) link
idk what else he could have done to try and close Gitmo, for example. No way does he want that open.
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 13 January 2016 23:17 (eight years ago) link
Writers are so often the worst judges of their own material.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 23:17 (eight years ago) link
xxpost
I am sure glad his grand bargain with Boehner fell apart. Not sure his pledge of civility and bipartisanship meant that proposed agreement
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 13 January 2016 23:21 (eight years ago) link
plz see my recent link on how he could've closed Gitmo by himself, Shakes, cuz i dont gaf anymore
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 23:22 (eight years ago) link
Really?
Also I did not expect him to allow his Justice department to go after whistleblowers more than any prior administration in history. But yeah, some good accomplishments
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 13 January 2016 23:23 (eight years ago) link
Morbz I don't see any discussion of Gitmo in that intercept link, or are you referring to something else
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 13 January 2016 23:26 (eight years ago) link
yes something a few weeks ago
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 23:27 (eight years ago) link
well it's not on this thread so idk what yr talking about
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 13 January 2016 23:28 (eight years ago) link
and you replied to it!
so Dubya wants to shut down Gitmo
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 23:33 (eight years ago) link
oh that
yeah idk how compelling that legal reasoning is, certainly it would be immediately challenged/drag on for years/go to the supreme court
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 13 January 2016 23:43 (eight years ago) link
morbs, which presidents do you think have accomplished more than obama (or have a more morally admirable record) in the last 50 years?
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 13 January 2016 23:52 (eight years ago) link
kinda like asking me to choose among mafia chieftains, no lie
LBJ was our last liberal prez, so despite that little genocidal oopsie in Vietnam, him. And everyone else except maybe Reagan, Nixon and Clinton.
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 14 January 2016 00:23 (eight years ago) link